


through mine you were looking in yours

by orderlyhouse



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1992 movie script, Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, M/M, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Podfic Welcome, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-17
Updated: 2020-01-17
Packaged: 2021-02-25 12:33:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22296028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orderlyhouse/pseuds/orderlyhouse
Summary: “Aziraphale. I just had the strangest dream.”Crowley tells him a story. There are other stories after, and some questions answered.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 111
Collections: the Good Omens Shitscript Cinematic Universe





	through mine you were looking in yours

**Author's Note:**

> [Based on the tumblr post.](https://lovesickcrowley.tumblr.com/post/190240075661/no-i-will-not-read-the-1992-screenplay-script)  
> A good chunk of this can be me rewriting the script but throwing some gags in.  
> The bit about The Importance of Being Earnest is based on the [summary](https://crantzypants.tumblr.com/post/190259206622/a-1992-good-omens-script-summary) of the script by crantzypants.  
> Title: [Last Words of a Shooting Star by Mitski.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo0SE7w5Yog)

Crowley opened his eyes and sat on the bed abruptly.

The nightstand clock was showing 3:30 am.

“Crowley?” Aziraphale called him, sitting by his side with a book and taking his reading glasses off. “Is everything alright?”

Crowley stared into space in front of him for a moment.

“I—“ he finally stammered, heaving a sigh and rubbing his face with his palms. “Aziraphale. I just had the strangest dream.”

Aziraphale put a bookmark in his reading, leaving it with his glasses on the nightstand so he could wrap a hand around Crowley’s shoulders.

“A nightmare?” He asked, gently stroking Crowley’s upper arm.

“No,” Crowley mumbled into his palms. “Not exactly, just… weird.”

Aziraphale hummed. Crowley had nightmares sometimes, but they stopped being the sort where he becomes shifty and distressed while he’s still sleeping a long time ago, and they weren’t so frequent for about a year now, but he never described them as “weird” before.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Aziraphale asked after a moment of silence, allowing Crowley to even out his breathing. It was a pointless question, really, or the one not worded correctly at least: they’ve never really talked about it, Crowley just told him that it was about the bookshop fire again, or the hellfire trial in Heaven and how scared he was it wouldn’t work and how he tried not to allow himself those thoughts because otherwise it would happen indeed, and then he just allowed Aziraphale to comfort him until he felt safe enough to fall asleep again.

It was not that Crowley was in a state of mind to discuss anything in those moments, anyway.

“It’s—“ Crowley finally lowered his hands, fixing his eyes on the duvet in front of him and huffing a small nervous laughter. “It’s ridiculous.”

“Well, I could use a laugh, this book is _dreadful._ ” Aziraphale briefly thought to _The Name of the Rose_ by Umberto Eco and Crowley’s playful bet that Aziraphale wouldn’t be able to handle a relatively modern book, which Aziraphale actually took seriously. It looked like Crowley was going to win, though.

Crowley shot him a sideways glance, accompanied by a momentary smile with just a touch of smugness, and then returned to staring at the duvet again.

“Okay, well… okay. First thing I remember is that we were playing checkers, and I knew that it’s just usual for us because we’ve been playing those bloody checkers for 6000 years _weekly,_ and you’ve never won once because I kept cheating. We were in your office in the British Museum because, apparently, you worked there, verifying the paintings and artefacts and all, and you even had an assistant and she called you a professor, and you’ve never had your bookshop.” Crowley huffed another laugh. “Can you imagine? Anyway, it was all happening in the 1980s, and I had a nightclub and I think it even had strippers, and one night I’ve met Madame Tracy in there, you know the one, and she was really rich and was having her Birthday party, but then Satan told me to meet him at the cemetery and—“

Crowley looked down on his hands that were now worrying the duvet.

“What? What happened next, Crowley?”

Crowley laughed softly again.

“This is the most ridiculous part of this, but Satan wore a suit, like those businessmen around the City, and he looked— Remember that adaptation of Sherlock Holmes a couple of years ago, the British one? The one you said you wouldn’t tell Arthur about, what they’ve done with the last season, next time you meet him up there? Well, he— Well, Satan looked like the main guy.”

Aziraphale frowned and looked aside, resting his eyes on one of the armchairs in the corner. He wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it, but his confusion overpowered that urge. He tried to rummage his memory, to recall the last time they saw the face of the actor Crowley was talking about but which none of them would remember the name of, but he couldn’t come up with anything that would explain at least that bit.

“Right.” Aziraphale said absentmindedly after a long pause.

“And then,” Crowley continued. “And then Satan gave me his baby, the Antichrist, and told me to look after him and that he’d check on him 11 years later, and I took it back to the nightclub because I didn’t even have a flat anymore. When I came there, I put the baby in some bag outside so no one would see him, but then a car came up and somebody took it, and—“

That was really the last straw. Confusion and absurdity finally came to even parts in Aziraphale’s mind, making him laugh.

Crowley turned to him with a frown, looking offended.

“I’m sorry, dear, I’m not laughing at you, of course I’m not, just—“ he fights back a laugh. “Please tell me this isn’t going in the direction of _The Importance of Being Earnest._ ”

Crowley frowned again, not looking hurt anymore. “The what? Just listen, Aziraphale.”

Aziraphale finished his laughing fit and turned his attention back to him.

“So, as I was saying, some car took the bag with the baby, so I was getting drunk in the club all by myself when you showed up and convinced me to look for the boy. And then… then there was like a scene cut, and we were in your office in the museum again and I knew we’ve spent the last 11 years searching for the Antichrist but haven’t found him, but I knew how he looked like, somehow. You were convincing me to try one last town, and then Satan pulled me into hell for a talk and I don’t know why but his receptionist was called Ashtoreth, which is… Anyway, Satan looked the same, like that alien guy in a suit, and then he told me that if I fail this I’m going back to hell, and if not I could—“

Crowley looked at him worriedly.

“Well?” Aziraphale prompted.

“Eh— I could— I could get off Earth and go to Alpha Centauri. Just like I wanted.”

They stayed silent for a moment, before Crowley continued.

“After that, we went to Tadfield, although I’m not entirely sure what exactly this place was since Oxfordshire doesn’t have any sea. We ended up staying at Madame Tracy’s inn, and we didn’t recognize each other, and Anathema was staying there too, and Adam turned out to be Tracy’s adopted son. Hell, angel, this kid was insufferable! I mean the one in my dream – he was brooding, had no friends, he didn’t even have his Dog, and I guess he was doing a lot around the place since Tracy seemed kinda… off. Actually, do you remember saying that Tadfield feels “loved” when we were at the Manor? Well, this one felt hated. I guess that’s why people were… _like that_ in there.”

Crowley paused, pinching the bridge of his nose. He saw how insane the situation he was talking about was, and was even smiling and laughing quietly in some of the most unbelievable places of his story, but something about it was clouding over him, and Aziraphale couldn’t tell what it was exactly. Was it the bit about Alpha Centauri? They have talked about it, all these years ago, and Aziraphale thought he explained himself well enough, and Crowley said he forgives him for everything he said at the bandstand, and for not trusting him, but what if he didn’t forgive him completely? What if it’s still gnawing on him?

“So anyway,” Crowley’s voice snapped him out of his gloomy thoughts. “We took him to London and showed him—“ Crowley sighed heavily. “Our own sides of humanity, so to speak. Satan showed up the next day, looking all the same, told me I did a good job and could ship off as promised, and then he and Adam made Tadfield look like a village from some sort of a musical where everybody’s happy and wears weirdly combined bright colours. I was going to leave, but you challenged me for the last game of checkers, and you cheated, for the first time in 6000 years, and finally won. Anathema gave us some… holy blade or something, and I tried to kill Satan with it but he overpowered us both, but Adam saved us because you talked to him about how loved he is on Earth already, and that’s—“

Crowley sighed and shook his head, chuckling soundlessly. “That’s it, really. Although you invited Anathema to work with you at the museum so she’d stop being just an occultist and got a real job.”

Crowley finally turned to him again, and Aziraphale watched him for a few moments. Despite taking in account a worried look and how tense Crowley’s posture was, as if he tried to skirt around some words left unsaid, Aziraphale couldn’t help some chuckling that escaped him as he thought about (but not too much) what Crowley just told him. Fortunately, Crowley seemed to think it over too, joining Aziraphale in laughing and relaxing a bit.

“Crowley, you were right,” Aziraphale said after both of them calmed down a bit. “It _is_ ridiculous, I mean, it’s not entirely impossible, however, there’s always a chance, but… why are you so upset? It was just a silly dream.”

Crowley stopped his giddy shifting caused by laughter and got tense again, clutching at the duvet. He turned away, enough so it would look natural, just an accident, but Aziraphale could see him biting his lip and looking almost pained.

“You know how in dreams you can’t really… control your actions? Like it is _you_ , you’d probably do and say that, but when you’re dreaming there’s a you, but not _exactly_ you, and you watch this person play it all out?”

Aziraphale nodded, although unsure if Crowley could see it. He wasn’t so dependent on sleeping, especially not really interested in it since the invention of the printing press, but he would occasionally humour Crowley, or just fall asleep on his own after watching Crowley sleeping for some time into the night.

“Well in… In my dream, I wasn’t particularly… good to you.”

Aziraphale blinked, not knowing what to say to _that,_ so he just relied on a brief “Oh?” to encourage Crowley to share the details, but it seemed to have somewhat of a reversed effect.

“I… No,” Crowley growled, hiding his face in his palms again. “I can’t, I don’t want to say this to you, I didn’t mean it, look, let’s just forget it ever happened, I’m—“

“Crowley, no,” Aziraphale brought the arm he wrapped around Crowley from his upper arm to his shoulder, holding him closer. “Let’s talk, let’s _really_ talk about this, please tell me what happened, I… I need to know.”

He did, he really did. Six thousand years spent in alienation to humanity and their respective sides both could not be made up for with the peaceful time they’ve spent together for less than half of decade, especially if they didn’t talk about it.

Crowley kept still for a moment, but finally pressed his face into the fleece of Aziraphale’s pyjamas, arms wrapping around his waist.

“Please, darling,” Aziraphale buried his free hand in Crowley’s hair, stroking gently and letting them flow through his fingers. “I won’t be angry with you. I won’t hate you, whatever it is you were dreaming about.”

His thumb was circling on Crowley’s silk-clad shoulder, and Crowley sighed heavily again, probably a 20th time in the last ten minutes.

“I didn’t like the Earth, or humanity.” He started. “I really wanted off, for all of the 6000 years, but it’s not even the worst part. I didn’t even like _you._ ”

There was a pause where Crowley was breathing heavily, so hard that Aziraphale could feel his arm move where it rested upon the expanse of Crowley’s back, and the ticking of grandfather clock was the only thing to fill in the silence.

“How do you mean?” Aziraphale finally asked when it became clear to him that Crowley won’t start speaking on his own.

Crowley’s breathing shuddered against his chest. “I called you stupid, and I really believed in it, and I said that you don’t deserve to live. I hated spending time with you, but I was coming back again and again weekly, and I never took you out anywhere except the bloody Hydepark to have the meetings like we used to in St James, I’ve never even told you anything. I just… didn’t care about you, I wanted to go off alone and meet some _alienness_ like some bloody James Bond type. I didn’t even think of you as my friend and _you_ _did_.”

They fell silent once more, and Crowley pressed closer to him, arms tightening.

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled into Aziraphale’s nightshirt.

“Crowley, it’s just a dream,” he was still stroking the demon’s hair. “It wasn’t you, you’ve said it yourself—“

“It’s not that.” Crowley interrupted him. “You know what dreams are, I know you do, they are like repressed desires and thoughts or something, and I— I know I’ve never thought that you’re stupid, or any of those things about you, and I’ve never wanted to treat you like that, but I am still sorry.”

Aziraphale carefully removed his hand from Crowley’s hair to wrap both of his arms around him.

“Right.” He said and started to slowly tip back until he felt that he was now resting upon the pillows and the headboard of the bed, Crowley’s body against his.

He paused, not knowing where to start, but finally deciding that the very beginning will do.

“Did you say we were playing checkers?” Aziraphale asked. Crowley was still, so he continued. “Crowley, you _hate_ checkers, and chess as well. You’ve never managed to sit still long enough until you got bored. I can’t even remember when we played any of it last time, let alone do it weekly.”

“1800,” Crowley mumbled in his shoulder. “When you just opened the bookshop. Chess. It was that silver and gold set. We’ve never finished it.”

Of course they haven’t, Aziraphale thought. They ended up drinking and talking.

Bet Crowley’s dream versions of themselves couldn’t do that.

“Well, you see,” Aziraphale said, feeling encouraged that his attempt at proving Crowley wrong was working. “And do you remember, in mid-1980s, you showed up at mine at three in the morning, saying you were in the neighbourhood and decided to come by for a nightcap when you saw the lights? You weren’t lying, exactly, and I’ve never told you this, but… I could sense you were in one of less nicer places, and it’s been around there for two years by that time, so of course I could tell. But I also knew you rather didn’t like being there.”

Crowley shifted, freeing one of his arms that got trapped under Aziraphale to lay on his side, his head still pillowed on Aziraphale’s chest.

“Did you really,” Crowley said. Aziraphale could finally see his face, and while his eyes weren’t up and were just fixed on the curtained window across the bedroom, Aziraphale could tell there was a small smile. “Yeah, not the public I expected, let alone any shows since it wasn’t even mentioned anywhere. I made sure some of the loudest bastards left all their cash there that evening for these girls though, got really tired of their shouting at the stage.”

His eyes widened.

“Oh, angel, I just remembered. The waitresses. In my dream, they were wearing something similar to these showgirls. I mean until they took them off.”

“Well, I wouldn’t be surprised,” Aziraphale said. “You’ve made your nanny persona we’ve made up for Warlock Satan’s receptionist.”

Crowley shook with laughter, and it was good, Aziraphale reasoned.

“I do think though, if you were to have a club, it would be a very nice place. Clean, at least, because the one in your dream doesn’t sound like it.” He was back to stroking Crowley’s hair again.

“Nuh. Too much trouble. Besides,” Crowley moved his arm that he slung across Aziraphale’s belly to better hug him. “That means I’d need to be away for some nights. A lot of them. Soho will do without another night bar.”

“As you say, dear.” Aziraphale laughed fondly. “Now. The bit about me working in The British Museum doesn’t seem so unbelievable. I used to write some of the scriptures and the Bibles, you know that. How did I look?”

Crowley finally brought his eyes up only to lower them, smiling again.

“The same. A bit rumpled, I s’ppose. You would never.”

“Did you like it?”

Crowley was silent for a moment, but it wasn’t a heavy silence this time.

“I wouldn’t mind it, I guess. If you looked like that. I think I’ve even seen that sandy wool jumper on you, when was it, in the 90s, I bet you still have it.”

He did. In perfect condition.

“But the bowtie would have to go.”

“Oh, out of the question then.”

Crowley tsked, muttering “Fine” with a smile.

“And I find it _really_ hard to believe you were ready to leave me for some questionable _alienness,_ especially if I was in the room.”

That was Aziraphale’s last argument, the one that Crowley would never deny, and it seemed to work.

“ _Shut up!_ ” Crowley said, grinning wide and rolling his eyes, but it wasn’t cruel, because Crowley wasn’t cruel. He has never been.

They sat still for a moment, Aziraphale now petting his head.

“It wasn’t you, Crowley. It was just a dream, and I would like you to stop being so Freudian about it, especially since you hate him as much as you hate Hyde Park.”

Crowley snorted.

“Well, it wasn’t me who didn’t put enough benches in there to annoy the public.” Aziraphale reminded him.

“Yes, but the cyclists and the runners weren’t mine, I’m sure of that.”

“They weren’t mine either, and I suggest we leave this maddening distance between the entrance and the nearest duck pond to whomever created it in the first place.”

They fell silent again.

Aziraphale waited to be sure that they were both calm and he wouldn’t ruin the moment, and that Crowley was still awake, his half-lidded eyes on the same curtains.

“Do you think, maybe,” Aziraphale started. “Whatever it is that you’ve seen, it could be a version of you Hell would expect you to be?”

“I don’t know,” Crowley responded after some consideration. “I’ve never really cared what they thought about how I’m supposed to be, I just did what they’ve told me to and that’s it, or asked you to do it, you know, whatever. They could never outsmart this planet, that’s for sure, so that was no bother, but I’ve never tried to be whatever they wanted me to be, I’ve never even thought about it properly.”

“I see.” Aziraphale muttered.

It was just a dream, after all.

More minutes passed as they remained in silence again, and Aziraphale wondered if Crowley nodded off and that maybe he should try to fall asleep too, especially since untangling himself from Crowley to grab the book would surely wake him up, but suddenly, Crowley spoke:

“I think I lied.”

Aziraphale was startled for a second, but then he frowned in confusion.

“What?”

Crowley opened his eyes to look straight ahead again. “I think I did think of you as stupid. Once. After the whole holy water business in the park.”

Oh, that one.

Aziraphale mused if it would be easier if he just told Crowley that he was right. He was stupid. On more than one occasion, to be honest, so turns out Crowley even took pity on him thinking that only once.

“I’ve never apologised for that, didn’t I. I’m sorry, Crowley. I shouldn’t have left you after that.”

Crowley lifted his head up.

“What are you on about? I’m the one trying to apologise here! I got angry with you, for thinking that I needed it to end it all, and I was the one telling you I didn’t need you, so I should’ve expected that you would’ve gotten the message and stay away from me. I’m sorry for all of this.”

It was Aziraphale’s turn to bear a heavy sight.

“Darling. I didn’t mean to. I shouldn’t have assumed this was why you needed it for. You know how afraid I was of Heaven, but I shouldn’t have taken my fears out on you. I’ve tried to come and talk to you after that, but you were already asleep by that time, and then in ’41 I thought we could just forget that and didn’t say anything, and really I’m—“

“How did you—“ Crowley silenced him. “I’ve never told you I was asleep! How did you know?!”

Aziraphale found himself completely at loss for words. He felt like he was caught in the flashlights.

“I—“ He stammered. “I thought you knew. Who do you think paid your rent and dusted the place and put fire on in the winter?” He looked aside, tearing his gaze away from Crowley’s.

Crowley was looking at him with an amazed incredulity, then shook his head, laughing, and settled back on Aziraphale’s chest.

“I think,” he said. “It’s only fair if you call me stupid in one of your dreams as well.”

“I’m not gonna do that.” Aziraphale protested. “I bet that demon whose dream you hijacked and who knows some other angel like me would never say something like this.” He kissed the crown of Crowley’s head.

Crowley hummed. “No, he’s a proper bastard. The other you is all right, though.” He looked up at Aziraphale again. “Do you think there’s another you somewhere else too?”

Aziraphale thought about it for a moment. “I suppose it’s what you mean by it. Maybe there is some extremely evil me. Maybe there is some version of us where it’s all just not right. I doubt, however, that there is a more angelic me, I don’t even know what that means.”

“Oh, no, no way. I like this version much better.” Crowley said before throwing a quick glance at Aziraphale and changing his tone to the one he usually used while trying to persuade Aziraphale to indulge him. “Do you know what the worst part of this dream was?”

Aziraphale frowned. There was more?

“No, what?”

“In the end,” Crowley said pretending to give off an unbothered, but secretly _is_ bothered impression. “I’ve told you Anathema became your new museum assistant, but there was a certain _aura_ around you two. Do you know what I mean?”

Aziraphale stared into the room, and then it hit him.

As did the wave of laughter.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale managed to say between his laughs. “Anathema thought we were together ever since you’ve hit her with your car, she told us herself at our reception, and it wasn’t as if we could be anything more than friends with her, you know that! How on Earth did that get into your dream?”

Crowley seemed to be affected by Aziraphale’s laughter and his own build-up to the big reveal, so he was laughing violently as well. “I don’t know, angel, but you see, there was no Newt or Shadwell as well, so maybe you were the only likeable person suited to her tastes around.”

“No Sergeant Shadwell as well, is it? Well, at least Madame Tracy seems to be in good health, the last time we saw them.”

“I doubt that, angel.” Crowley protested. “Maybe it’s just another version of her going crazy, if you marry someone like Shadwell—“

“Oh, hush.” Aziraphale tutted.

Neither did speak for some time, the only sounds between them were the remnants of laughter.

Eventually, Crowley’s breathing evened out, and he was blinking more often, but still far from being asleep.

“I still don’t understand why that actor was there.” Aziraphale said in a lowered voice, not to startle him.

“Oh,” Crowley replied, his speech a bit slower than usual, but not deliberately so. “I think I might have ignited a heated discussion under a post about him on the Daily Mail website last week. Accidentally. The comment section was rather dull those days. I told you, I can’t even remember his name.”

“Oh.” Was the only thing Aziraphale could say. Really, it was so like Crowley, but even his accidental mischiefs were endearing.

Finally, Crowley closed his eyes, dozing off, but he still wasn’t asleep and Aziraphale really, really wanted to tell him this.

He needed to tell him until the moment was gone. In case there wouldn’t be an opportunity for this anymore.

He just wanted him to know.

“Crowley,” He called him so Crowley would definitely stay with him for this, making sure his voice was even more muted than before, gently placing one of his hands on the side of Crowley’s face and tracing his cheekbone with a thumb. “I know this is silly, we’re literally married, but you know I’m still your friend, right? I’ve always been. I’m sorry I never told you, and you have always been my friend. Thank you for that.”

“Of course,” Crowley said muzzily, turning his head a bit against Aziraphale’s palm. “Of course we are.”

“Goodnight, my dear.” Aziraphale smiled, softly tracing his cheekbone again.

Crowley softly hummed in response before the last bit of tension left his body and he was finally asleep.

Soon enough, Aziraphale decided to join him as well.

**Author's Note:**

> If you thought I've referenced The Sacred and the Profane by the end... Maybe I did.  
> [Tumblr](https://polkanote.tumblr.com/)


End file.
